That black, white and Asian races do exist has always been perfectly obvious but Leftists are always trying to deny it. They say it is "racist" even to mention it. A study of the DNA of many different populations has however now confirmed the obvious. And the researchers admit that the genetic differences can have notable effects. They also however make much of the fact that the differences occur in only a small percentage of our genes. Most genes are shared by all races. One does wonder why they think that is important. We also share around 98% of our genes with chimpanzees. Does that mean that the difference between humans and chimpanzees is unimportant?

Let me illustrate the importance of small genetic differences by a story about cricket. I know that some of my readers are American and will therefore likely know nothing about the world's most widely-followed bat-and-ball game -- but my story is a simple one so I don't think much will be lost in translation.

Australia's most famous cricketer is the recently deceased Don Bradman. What made him famous was that in his hands a cricket bat seemed to have a miraculous attraction to a cricket ball. No matter what they bowled down to him he could always swat it. As a result he would in some matches get as many as 400 runs, where 100 runs is normally considered a great achievement. Now the Don's eerie skill with a bat was obviously the result of a very rare confluence of genetic factors. If practice and training were what made Bradman great, we would have 10,000 Bradmans.

Now I am fairly sure that I share around 99.9% of my genes with Don Bradman -- but I can't hit a ball for nuts. So even very small genetic differences can make a huge difference in abilities etc. -- and not only in cricket -- JR

There is a simplicity and all-inclusiveness to the number three -- the triangle, the Holy Trinity, three peas in a pod. So it's perhaps not surprising that the Family of Man is divided that way, too.

All of Earth's people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made -- the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens.

One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. The second is the Eurasian, encompassing the natives of Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia (east to about Pakistan). The third is the East Asian, the inhabitants of Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia, and -- thanks to the Bering Land Bridge and island-hopping in the South Pacific -- of the Americas and Oceania as well.

The existence of this ancient divergence has long been known. What is new is a subtle but important insight into what happened on a genomic level as the human species spilled across the landscape, eventually occupying every habitable part of the planet.

People adapted to what they encountered the way all living organisms do: through natural selection. A small fraction of the mutations constantly creeping into our genes happened by chance to prove beneficial in the new circumstances outside the African homeland. Those included differences in climate, altitude, latitude, food availability, parasites, infectious diseases and lots of other things.

A person who carried, by chance, a helpful mutation was more likely to survive and procreate than someone without it. The person's offspring would then probably be endowed with the same beneficial mutation. Over thousands of generations, the new variant (what geneticists call the "derived allele") could go from being rare to being common as its carriers fared better than their brethren and contributed more descendants to the population.

Scientists have long known that regardless of ancestral home or ethnic group, everyone's genes are pretty much alike. We're all Homo sapiens. Everything else is pretty much details.

Recent research has produced a surprise, however. Population geneticists expected to find dramatic differences as they got a look at the full genomes -- about 25,000 genes -- of people of widely varying ethnic and geographic backgrounds. Specifically, they expected to find that many ethnic groups would have derived alleles that their members shared but that were uncommon or nonexistent in other groups. Each regional, ethnic group or latitude was thought to have a genomic "signature" -- the record of its recent evolution through natural selection.

But as analyses of genomes from dozens of distinct populations have rolled in -- French, Bantu, Palestinian, Yakut, Japanese -- that's not what scientists have found. Dramatic genome variation among populations turns out to be extremely rare.

Instead, it is "random genetic drift" that appears to be more important in sculpting our genes. Drift describes the chance loss of genetic variation that occurred not only in the out-of-Africa migration, but through all of human history as famine, climate change or war caused populations to crash and then recover.

Despite those calamities, it appears that all contemporary populations ended up largely the same, or only crudely distinguishable from one another, on the genome level.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

"Asia" apparently includes the Middle East these days. More of those lovely Muslims to hate us while sponging off us

A MASSIVE influx of up to 10,000 asylum seekers is expected to head to Australia, Indonesian authorities have warned.

About 1500 asylum seekers have already arrived in Indonesia from Malaysia by boat this year and registered for refugee status, while the same number again are believed to have arrived and not registered, Fairfax newspapers report.

Malaysia is used as a staging point to obtain tourist visas before refugees seek passage to Australia via Indonesia. The refugees are believed to include people from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Burma and Iraq.

An Australian immigration enforcement official says the high volumes of people present a similar situation to the thousands who began arriving in the late 1990s.

With Australian financial and technical support, the Indonesian government will announce on Wednesday a strike team of 12 dedicated police to combat human trafficking. But the sheer number of asylum seekers from Malaysia will put pressure on the new security measures.

Coordinator of the Malaysian immigration support group Tenaganita, Aegile Fernandez agreed that up to 10,000 asylum seekers in Malaysia were planning to come to Australia. "I would put the blame on these agencies that have been promising Australia as the destination,'' she said.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has 49,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers in its records in Malaysia and estimates there are 45,000 unregistered illegal immigrants.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Dawn - Security forces have detained a man who trained suicide bombers and two other terrorists in Swat and seized a car and a rickshaw stuffed with explosives for possible suicide bombings. Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement on Sunday, soldiers had cleared the area around Kokarai, linking it with Jambil. The suicide trainer was identified as Abdul Rehman and the two other terrorists as Akbar and Saleem.

Dawn - Twelve soldiers were killed after militants reportedly aligned with the Baitullah Mehsud group ambushed a military convoy in North Waziristan on Sunday. Ten militants were killed in the ensuing gunbattle. Ten soldiers were injured in the attack, sources said. The convoy was attacked in the Wacha Bibi near Datakhel, about 35 kilometres west of Miramshah. Security forces and militants were engaged in fierce clashes till late night.

France 24 - Seven policemen and two soldiers were killed in two separate attacks by suspected Muslim guerrillas on the restive southern Philippine island of Basilan, officials said on Sunday. In the latest incident, seven policemen travelling in a government vehicle were killed in an ambush by a hundred Muslim gunmen in the town of Sumisip on Sunday, said police spokesman Superintendent Danilo Bacas.

LA Times - In an audio message from a hide-out in South Asia this month, an Al Qaeda chief did something new: He sang the praises of an ethnic group that once barely registered in the network. "We consider the Muslims in Turkey our brothers," said Mustafa Abu Yazid, the network's operations chief. Lauding Turkish suicide bombers killed in recent attacks near the Afghan-Pakistani border, he declared, "This is a pride and honor to the nation of Islam in Turkey, and we ask Allah to accept them amongst the martyrs."

The message is the latest sign of the changing composition of Islamic extremism, anti-terrorism officials and experts say. The number of Turks in Al Qaeda, long dominated by Arabs, has increased notably, officials say. And militant groups dominated by Turks and Central Asians, many of whom share Turkic culture and speak a Turkic language, have emerged as allies of and alternatives to Al Qaeda in northwestern Pakistan.

Brisbane Times - A man used a butcher's knife to stab his stepdaughter up to 20 times because he believed she was a "slut" who was interfering in his marriage, a court has heard. Khaled Ibrahim Mohamed Ellaimouny, 38, was today jailed for 12 years for the attempted murder of his stepdaughter Amanda Lee Smith, who was 24 when her stepfather stabbed her in the chest, arms, legs and face as she sat on the lounge of the family's Shailer Park home in January 2007.

Compass Direct - A 37-year-old Christian is languishing in a Sialkot jail after police broke his backbone because his father was preaching Christ, according to a local advocacy group. Arshad Masih had been in a hospital – chained to his bed on false robbery charges – after police torture that began Dec. 28, 2008 left him incapacitated. He was discharged from General Hospital in Lahore on Saturday (June 20) and returned to jail despite efforts by the Community Development Initiative (CDI), a support group that is providing Masih legal assistance.

Compass Direct - A pastor in Zanzibar City said his church is without a worship place after government officials, at the instigation of radical Islamists, evicted the congregation from their rented building on Tanzania’s Zanzibar Island off the coast of East Africa. With just two days’ notice, government officials ordered Christians of the Church of God Zanzibar from their rented government building effective April 19, ostensibly to pave the way for renovations.

While the Islamists do what they do in the name of their peaceful, tolerant, non-violent religion, we have friends like these.

INN - Protests by the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) forced the Canadian province of British Columbia to remove from its website a “loaded bomb” question that illustrates how anti-Zionism infiltrates into the educational system that often tries to rewrite history. A question prepared for a history examination in the province was posted on the website as part of a practice test until the CJC got wind of it. Students were asked to identify the group referred to in the following statement: "They have been fighting to regain a homeland since they were driven out in 1948. Some have lived their entire lives in refugee camps. Forty years later, Israel still refuses to recognize their right to exist as a nation."

The students were offered four choices: Jews, Iranians, Egyptians or Palestinians. Romy Ritter, the Pacific regional director of the CJC, pointed out that all three-sentences in the question presented a “one-sided view” that is full of historical inaccuracies, and Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid promptly removed the question after complaints.

Khaleej Times - International activists sailed from Cyprus on Monday in a bid to deliver aid to the Palestinian population in Gaza, in defiance of a sea blockade by Israel. A group of 21 activists from the U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement left the Cypriot port of Larnaca early on Monday morning for a 30-hour journey on a small ferry bedecked with brightly coloured flags including a rainbow flag for peace. The group planned to deliver three tonnes of medical supplies, some tool kits and copper wiring to Gaza. On two previous occasions, activists were intercepted by Israeli authorities.

Sunday Mercury - A YOUNG schoolboy was “converted” to Islam on the streets of Birmingham by a radical Muslim preacher, the Sunday Mercury can reveal. The bewildered-looking 11 year-old, who gives his name as Sean, was filmed repeating Arabic chants and swearing allegiance to Allah. The white schoolboy is prompted throughout by controversial cleric Anjem Choudary, a follower of exiled hate-preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed. The incident was filmed during a demonstration by Choudary’s Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’ah group in Birmingham city centre earlier this month.

Daily Mail - At least 85 Islamic sharia courts are operating in Britain, a study claimed yesterday. The astonishing figure is 17 times higher than previously accepted. The tribunals, working mainly from mosques, settle financial and family disputes according to religious principles. They lay down judgments which can be given full legal status if approved in national law courts.

The Hindu - Despite questions about the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election and his belligerent anti-American rhetoric, the White House remains open to discussions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. "It's in the United States' national interest to make sure that we have employed all elements at our disposal, including diplomacy, to prevent Iran from achieving that nuclear capacity," Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday.

......Both Ms. Rice and David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's top adviser, said Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn't appear to have the final say over Iran's foreign policy. Mr. Axelrod, dismissing Ahmadinejad's harsh language as "bloviations," said being open to talks with Iran is not an effort to reward the country. "We are looking to... sit down and talk to the Iranians and offer them two paths. And one brings them back into the community of nations, and the other has some very stark consequences," Mr. Axelrod said.

The Week [NRO] - One little-noticed line in his much-dissected Cairo speech was President Obama’s complaint that American “rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill . . . zakat,” the alms-giving obligation that is central to Islam, as to other religions. Obama pledged to undo this seeming injustice. But the United States has no rules that discriminate against Islamic giving. Our laws, instead, forbid material support for terrorism. They have been applied against various entities, not just Islamic ones, that abet terrorist organizations. They have fallen most heavily on Muslim charities because, as has been proven repeatedly, jihadist groups use some of those charities as fronts for terrorism financing. Indeed, during the recent Holy Land Foundation trial, which resulted in the convictions of several Hamas fundraisers, the government presented evidence of a broad Islamist conspiracy to conduct “financial jihad.” Material-support laws enable the government to deprive terror cells of the resources they need to operate. They are a key part of the strategy that has kept America free of major terrorist attacks since 9/11.

No dissent from the Warmist Gospel allowed: Mitchell Taylor, who has studied the bears for 30 years, was barred from a U.N. conference about them

"Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor had obtained funding to attend this week's meeting of the PBSG, but this was voted down by its members because of his views on global warming. The chairman, Dr Andy Derocher, a former university pupil of Dr Taylor's, frankly explained in an email (which I was not sent by Dr Taylor) that his rejection had nothing to do with his undoubted expertise on polar bears: "it was the position you've taken on global warming that brought opposition".

So, as the great Copenhagen bandwagon rolls on, stand by this week for reports along the lines of "scientists say polar bears are threatened with extinction by vanishing Arctic ice". But also check out Anthony Watt's Watts Up With That website for the latest news of what is actually happening in the Arctic. The average temperature at midsummer is still below zero, the latest date that this has happened in 50 years of record-keeping. After last year's recovery from its September 2007 low, this year's ice melt is likely to be substantially less than for some time. The bears are doing fine.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

I should have mentioned yesterday that the "learned" British judges who ruled that Jews are a race do have on their side one authority who is much respected to this day in academe: Karl Marx. Marx was of course the original self-hating Jew. He was furiously antisemitic. But Marx was a sponger. He rarely earned enough to keep himself and his family so was always "borrowing" money from someone. It was initially his father (Heinrich Marx was a real gentleman, a lovely man. How he ever had such a monster as Karl is hard to imagine) and he was in later years supported by Friedrich Engels out of the proceeds of the Engels family business. One therefore imagines that when he wrote a letter to his Jewish uncle in Holland he had in mind ingratiating himself for future borrowing. The letter was about Marx's excitement over the American civil war and his contempt for Benjamin Disraeli but in the course of his comments about Disraeli he does refer to "our race".

As I briefly touched on in the opening sentence to my post yesterday, I am not wholly unsympathetic to self-hating Jews. It must be appalling to realize that by the accident of your birth you are a member of a widely suspect and even hated group -- regardless of what your personal characteristics might be. Distancing oneself from that could even be a perfectly healthy reaction. But it is when such Jews extend the dislike of their origins to undermining Israel that they really get my goat. Why do they have to be so extreme? Why not simply become an Anglican, as Disraeli did? The Anglicans (Episcopalians in the USA) have lovely buildings, colourful services and the sermons demand nothing and in fact mean nothing at all. Why not just treat it as a pleasant Sunday morning time of relaxation and have a whole new identity to show for it? Many Anglican bishops are barely-disguised atheists so you certainly don't have to believe anything to be an Anglican. It is sometimes said that the only requirement for being an Anglican is good taste.

By the way, "Die Judenfrage" is German for "The Jewish Question" and is an expression used by both Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler so there is an allusion to history in the title I chose yesterday and today. It is actually a bit of a tease. Any stray Leftist coming by my writings would expect something antisemitic under that title -- but, as you can see, such an expectation would have been disappointed.

In my peculiar position as a atheist with an interest in religious matters, I take a continued interest not only in Jews but also in the Church of England. And I have recently put up on my Paralipomena blog an article by a Church of England bishop that makes doleful reading. He notes the steady decline in adherents to his church and suspects that his church will not exist at all in 30 years' time. But he has no real answer to that problem. So will the Church of England eventually disappear up its own backside? I think not. The problem, as I see it, is that they have somehow become dominated by dress-up queens. People go there for a show rather than for a boost to faith.

But amid such desecration of a great heritage, real faith does survive in patches. The Sydney diocese is the most vivid proof of that. Their churches are full and their seminary is overflowing with people with a religious vocation. So how do they do it? Simple. They have returned to their roots. The original faith of the New Testament is a mightily powerful one and the closer you get to that the more empowered you will be. And the 39 "Articles of Religion" that were the original definition of Anglicanism are a very powerful expression of early Protestant faith -- a faith that was very Bible-based. So my expectation is that the show-ponies of Anglicanism will wither away eventually and a core of real believers will remain.

They may even evangelize. Priests ordained in Sydney already do. They go into neighbouring dioceses and set up "Family Churches", much to the irritation of the local bishops. The Sydney priests end up having more people in their pews than the local Bishop does! So the vitality is there if you drink from the waters of the original New Testament faith. The knowalls may dismiss such faith as "old-fashioned" and "irrelevant to the modern world" but it still has a great power to bring blessings to its people.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Daily Mail - Doctors are demanding the right to discuss religion with patients and to pray for them. Medics will discuss the issue at the British Medical Association (BMA) conference this week. It follows recent cases where health workers had got into trouble for offering spiritual support to those in their care. Cancer specialist Dr Bernadette Birtwhistle, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: 'I think it is getting to the point where many of us feel we cannot talk to patients about their spiritual or religious needs or ask them about praying. 'Christianity is being seen as something that is unhelpful.

Christianity is unhelpful now, two things on this. One, assuming that most of us believe that western civilization is superior and far better than other civilizations around the world, what did those who made the western world this better place believe in? What religion were they?

Two, assuming that those who answered the above question aren't stupid or dishonest, why then, is Christianity seen as being unhelpful? It's almost as if those who see Christianity as unhelpful have nefarious motives, no?

Most Jews must be heartily sick of being forever singled out for discussion and scrutiny but it seems that it was ever so and ever will be. And in my utter folly, I am once again going to voice a few thoughts on one of the most hotly contested topics among Jews: Who is a Jew?

My present thoughts arise from the "wise" British judges who recently decided that Jews are a race. Since there are Jews of all races -- including black ones -- that is arrant nonsense. Yet it is also partly true -- in that various genetic studies have shown that many Jews do still have in them some Middle Eastern genes. So for Jews as a whole it is true that Israel is their ancestral home as well as their religious home.

Nonetheless, it seems clear that Jews are a religion, not a race. And the test of that, it seems to me, is that Jews do accept converts. Try converting yourself into another race: It can't be done.

But many Jews are atheists or something close to it, so how can Jewry be a religion? The easy answer to that from an Orthodox viewpoint (with which I am broadly sympathetic) is that being Jewish is not a matter of belief but of practice. A Jew is someone who follows Jewish law (halacha). What you believe is very secondary. Deeds speak louder than words. Christianity is belief based but Judaism is practice based.

But there is also a much simpler answer: MOST religion is hereditary. And those who inherit it are often not zealous practitioners of it. My late father, for instance, always put his religion down on official forms as "C of E" ("Church of England") and had no hesitation in doing so. He in fact seemed rather proud of it. Yet in all the time I knew him, he never once set foot inside an Anglican church.

So why cannot Jews be the same? Even if you are not religious, you can still have a religious identity.

Because I am an atheist, I never bothered with getting my son Christened but I considered that a knowledge of Christianity was an important element of his cultural heritage so I sent him to a Catholic school -- in the view that Catholics still had enough cultural self-confidence to teach the Christian basics. And they did. And my son greatly enjoyed his religion lessons -- as I hoped he would.

When he was aged 9 however, he said that he wanted to become a Catholic, which of course I was delighted to arrange. So he was baptised and subsequently had his confirmation lessons and was confirmed. These days many years later his beliefs seem to be as skeptical as mine -- which I also expected -- so what motivated his desire to become a Catholic? He wanted to have a religious identity. There was no pressure on him but he was greatly impressed by some very faith-filled people in the church and he wanted to identify with that. And I imagine that he still puts himself down on forms as "Catholic".

So a religious identity can be quite a significant thing for many people, not only Jews. It is a part of belonging -- and that is a very basic human need. Jews in a way are lucky there. No matter what their beliefs are, they still know that there is always one place where they belong, if they ever want to acknowledge it.

Once or twice a year I still attend my local Presbyterian church (at Easter etc.) and I certainly feel that I belong there. I feel at home with all aspects of it. My mother was a Presbyterian of sorts so that was where I was sent as a kid for Sunday School -- and that has stayed with me even though I no longer believe. So, again, one can have and value a religious identity even if one's beliefs have very little to do with it.

And the lady in my life -- Anne -- is only very vaguely religious but her background religion is Presbyterian and there are many habits of mind she has which I know well from my own family, and with which I am therefore very much at ease. Sometimes when she speaks, I hear my mother and my aunties speaking too. She has a Presbyterian mind, or a Presbyterian way of thinking -- perhaps Presbyterian assumptions. I think that in a similar way, most Jews probably have a Jewish mind too. Attitudes and habits of thought may in fact be the most important parts of a religious heritasge.

I am sure that everything I have said above will be mumbo jumbo to most Leftists but, if so, that is their loss.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

The thugs should have been convicted of attempted murder and spent years in jail for it. Sadly the token sentences they actually received are all too typical. No wonder violent crime continues to flourish. This will be a big blow to Australia's standing in India and may just about kill off our overseas student industry. Indian students coming to Australia to complete their education has so far been a considerable source of revenue for Australia

Notice that, contrary to usual practice, no names of the offenders are given. I can't imagine why. I'm guessing that there was at least one "Mohammed" among them and the the surnames would have been mainly Sudanese

The Indian community has reacted with outrage after a magistrate ruled that the young thugs who beat an Indian man almost to death will walk free after serving only six months. On Wednesday, Magistrate Kay Macpherson said five teenagers acted "like a pack of animals" when they bashed Indian student Sukhraj Singh in December and left him in a coma for three weeks. But she sentenced four of them to only 12 months' youth detention - meaning they will be eligible for parole within weeks after serving more than six months on remand. Another youth involved in the attack escaped custody, instead being sentenced to a 12-month youth attendance.

One of the youths - who at 14 already had an earlier conviction for armed robbery - had been involved in 12 violent incidents since he had been on remand, Ms Macpherson noted in sentencing him.

Mr Singh was initially speechless when told of the sentences. "I don't understand this at all," he said.

But a source revealed that all four of the youths had been involved in violence while on remand at the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre. The source said the youths had been kept apart at the centre. "We would have had no hope of controlling them if they had been together," he said.

Mr Singh was bashed by the gang in December in a grocery store in Sunshine. The five youths, then aged between 14 and 17, were originally charged with attempted murder over the attack, which fractured Mr Singh's skull on three sides. But the attempted murder charges were dropped when the five agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of intentionally causing serious injury. The five also pleaded guilty to armed robbery over the attack. Another man and a youth have pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and will be tried later.

Indian community leaders reacted with outrage to the leniency shown by the court. "What sort of a sentence is this?" said Vasan Srinivasan, president of the Federation of Indian Associations, Victoria.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

The fact that the money is extorted from millions of ordinary Britons via a compulsory "licence" fee does not inhibit their spending at all

Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, insisted that all of the expenses claims made by staff were 'reasonable and justified'. Mr Thompson insisted that all of the expenses claims made by staff – including nights at five-star hotels, bottles of champagne and flights in private planes – were "reasonable and justified". He claimed BBC managers earn far less than they would in the private sector, and said it was right that the multi-million pound salaries of star presenters remained secret, otherwise there would be a "talent drain" to other channels.

Mr Thompson made his comments on the two of the state broadcaster's own shows – BBC1's Breakfast and Radio 4's Today programme – following the publication for the first time on Thursday of detailed breakdowns of his staff's expenses and salaries. The figures showed that the BBC's 50 highest-paid executives earned as much as £13.6million last year, with 27 paid more than the Prime Minister.

In addition, they spent tens of thousands of pounds' worth of public money on entertaining each other, staying at top hotels around the world and showering gifts on actors and other employees. One executive sent a £100 bouquet of flowers to Jonathan Ross, while another spent £1,137.55 on a dinner to mark Sir Terry Wogan's knighthood.

But Mr Thompson, whose basic salary is £647,000, said: "Every one of these expenses in my view was reasonable and was justified. "This is an organisation with a turnover over £4.5billion and this is a few hundred thousand pounds of expenses. "They've been pored over by the papers, The Daily Telegraph asked us 150 questions in the course of yesterday afternoon, and I don't believe that I've yet seen any evidence that a single one of these line-by-line expenses has been in any way unjustified."

He also defended the earnings of BBC executives, saying: "We all accept that we should get paid much less than our equivalents do in the private sector." Mr Thompson claimed the BBC had censored far less information than MPs had done when publishing their expenses in detail for the first time last week. But he said the salaries of its top performers must not be disclosed in order to stop them leaving for rival broadcasters. "We worry that, if it turns out you work for the BBC, you get your pay disclosed, if you work for ITV you don't, there will be a talent drain," Mr Thompson claimed.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

"Tools of mass communication that were once the province of governments and corporations now fit in your pocket. Cell phones can capture video and send it wirelessly to the Internet. People can send eyewitness accounts, photos and videos, with a few keystrokes, to thousands or even millions via social networking sites. As these technologies have developed, so too has the ability to monitor, filter, censor and block them....

Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a media policy group, says the actions of Iran and China should alert us to domestic surveillance issues in the U.S. He told me: “This technology that monitors everything that goes through the Internet is something that works, it’s readily available, and there’s no legislation in the United States that prevents the U.S. government from employing it. ... It’s widely known that the major carriers, particularly AT&T and Verizon, were being asked by the NSA [National Security Agency], by the Bush administration ... to deploy off-the-shelf technology made by some of these companies like Cisco.” The equipment formed the backbone of the “warrantless wiretapping” program.

Thomas Tamm was the Justice Department lawyer who blew the whistle on that program. In 2004, he called The New York Times from a subway pay phone and told reporter Eric Lichtblau about the existence of a secret domestic surveillance program. In 2007, the FBI raided his home and seized three computers and personal files. He still faces possible prosecution. Tamm told me: “I think I put my country first ... our government is still violating the law. I’m convinced ... that a lot more Americans have been illegally wiretapped than we know.”

The warrantless wiretapping program was widely considered illegal. After abruptly switching his position in midcampaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama voted along with most in Congress to grant telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon retroactive immunity from prosecution. The New York Times recently reported that the NSA maintains a database called Pinwale, with millions of intercepted e-mail, including some from former President Bill Clinton.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was recently asked by Sen. Russ Feingold if he felt that the original warrantless wiretap program was illegal:

Feingold: “[I]s there any doubt in your mind that the warrantless wiretapping program was illegal?”

Holder: “Well, I think that the warrantless wiretapping program, as it existed at that point, was certainly unwise, in that it was put together without the approval of Congress.”

Feingold: “But I asked you, Mr. Attorney General, not whether it was unwise, but whether you consider it to have been illegal.”

So Holder is leaving the way open to do just what the Left condemned GWB for doing. So if Obama wants to eavesdrop on the conversations of HIS version of "terrorists" -- such as ordinary American gun owners -- he can do so. Rather chilling to free speech!

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

You need to contact your personal "representative" and either congratulate or excoriate.Remind those who voted FOR that pseudo-science global-warming-hoax pile of compost that WE have LOOOOONNNNNG memories for those who stab us in the collective back, and WE WILL REMEMBER THEIR TREACHERY NEXT NOVEMBER!...you might politely inquire as to whether or not 30 pieces of silver is adequate severance pay, because that vote cost them their current employment......

Black book of communism [Wiki] - The introduction, by editor Stéphane Courtois, asserts that "...Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". He cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the "excess deaths" (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:

* 65 million in the People's Republic of China* 20 million in the Soviet Union[3]* 2 million in Cambodia* 2 million in North Korea* 1.7 million in Africa* 1.5 million in Afghanistan* 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe* 1 million in Vietnam[4]* 150,000 in Latin America* 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power."(p. 4)

But no, that's not enough for the leftist child abusers in Black Pine Circle School, Berkeley, California. Millions upon millions killed by communism, if that's not a definition of pure evil, then I don't know what is. But that won't stop some from yearning to give it another chance, it won't stop them from indoctrinating the children in their care with it either.

FOX News - Symbols of communism and marijuana and a prediction that "capitalism will fail" aren't exactly the sort of end-of-year messages you'd expect from an eighth grader. But that's precisely what some students at the Black Pine Circle School, a private school in Berkeley, Calif., chose to include in their "Class of 2007" mosaic.

The symbols, which are prominently displayed outside the school, have prompted questions about the appropriateness of images like a hammer and sickle and a marijuana leaf on school grounds — and have led critics to say they are blatant proof of political indoctrination of young children.

Black Pine Circle bills itself as a day school where students from kindergarten through eighth grade will be "maximally free of all the 'isms' which pervade most aspects of the world around them: from racism to sexism to the less obvious forms of discrimination," according to its Web site. Capitalism, even if it fails, apparently isn't one of those: Tuition for a 10-month term costs more than $17,000.

They are a private school and apart from the hypocrisy of charging so much in fees, it really beggars belief why parents would choose to pay so much money to send their children to a school that's so full of this evil shit. They must be stupid, because if they had any brains or balls, the vermin would pack up their crap and move off to Russia or something so they can enjoy the vast splendor of the communist utopia they so obviously yearn for.

And to think, these kids will be tomorrow's leaders. One wonders yet again, how many must be slaughtered before the left will give up on communism, 100 million, 500 million, 1 Billion, 5 Billion, how many will it take before they say, look guys, this shit just ain't working?

Ineptitude of self-serving know-all bureaucrats caused many deaths in the Victorian bushfires

The bureaucratic ineptitude being revealed at the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission is at once extraordinary and infuriating. The lessons have implications for every aspect of government in Australia and demand a radical rethink about the dominance of politicised bureaucracies within our lives. The emerging picture eerily imitates Franz Kafka's The Trial.

Government fire services furtively developed their doctrinaire rules, then enforced them with mindless zeal. Fire and emergency supremos were provided with limitless authority to bend citizens and communities to their rigid controls without effective scrutiny or supervision. What emerges is a layer of self-styled bureaucratic intelligentsia devising policies that became sacrosanct in themselves regardless of their original purpose. Ideological processes left no room for common sense, pragmatism or compassion, and opportunities to help vulnerable people were wasted. Policies bore testimony to the assumption that the population was so imbecilic as to need greater protection from itself than from raging wildfire.

Sound familiar? This mindset is magnified by its ubiquity in modern Australian government and alarm bells should be ringing. Failures equally significant but less conspicuous are probably simmering away beneath the whole gamut of populist government decision-making. The danger is fanned by the speed and dimension of decisions that are made under of a veil of urgency associated with recession, security and other confected emergencies.

Day after day, emergency service tsars present themselves to the royal commission as though they are the stars atop the tree of knowledge. The Country Fire Authority seems genuinely bamboozled that a handful of head office executives did not prove to be wiser than its thousands of volunteers who have intimate knowledge of local roads, properties and personalities. Directions, strategies and resources were issued and controlled by executives far removed from the horrific reality that their edicts and regulations created. Volunteers and citizens were left to fend for themselves after bureaucratic strategies descended into chaos.

Rigid and enforced controls were relaxed only when they were mocked into submission by a recalcitrant inferno. The winding trail of blunders growing from stubbornly centralised remote control defies the imagination. Emergency call centres were overwhelmed while extensive volunteer networks lay idle. NSW firefighters were called up with media fanfare and weren't provided with so much as a map. One homeowner was relieved to see a NSW bushfire tanker arrive at his front gate, only to learn it was lost.

ABC radio had been anointed the official emergency broadcaster with little regard for the millions who listen to commercial radio. Descriptions of the official information feed provided to the broadcaster conjure visions of a garbage chute funnelling ad hoc faxes, phone calls, emails and web bulletins. Producers and announcers consumed valuable time piecing together the scraps of intelligence.

To his credit the CFA chief officer continues to roll up to the royal commission to take his medicine. It will be interesting to see if his past and present ministers will also be required to testify and give an account of their stewardship. Neither justice nor recovery will be served if the bureaucrats are hung out to dry by themselves.

The vast body of evidence suggests a great deal of loss and destruction could have been avoided if local knowledge, experience and commitment had been respected and used. Instead, the politicians and their bureaucrats shared a motivation to exert close and uncompromised control. An aggressive resistance to contestable advice allowed policy-makers to deny the existence of culpable knowledge. The mandarins eventually succumbed to their own intoxicating publicity and stared down the risk of their knowledge deficit. Dysfunctionality bred like a virus in a hotbed of intellectual conceit.

The implications are sobering for every aspect of government policy. School principals especially must be crying tears of blood as they witness the obscene waste of money occurring under the ridiculously rigid policies of the so-called Building the Education Revolution.

Of course the critical role of bureaucracy must be respected and communities are happy to oblige. However, such respect does not establish government entities as the sole repository of wisdom. People don't expect governments to be omniscient but they are entitled to hold them to a lie as much as a truth. Including communities in practical policy formulation must go far deeper than the cosmetic consultation most Australian governments practise.

It must also go deeper than community cabinet meetings and a prime ministerial revival of an imagined Australian lexicon. It also goes beyond the federal government's notion of "umpire politics" where decisions are designed to mute the lobbyists rather than genuinely serve the nation.

Real change requires courage and creativity that is shared and accepted with a parity of worth. The view that these qualities are vested exclusively in parliamentary and bureaucratic empires is a dangerous and culpable vanity that Australia simply cannot afford.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Dawn.com - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Barack Obama on Thursday not to interfere in Iran's internal affairs after the US president said he was ‘appalled and outraged’ by post-election violence, a news agency reported. ‘Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things...our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former US President George W.) Bush used to say,’ the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Elsewhere this is being reported as, Obama the same as Bush, oooohhh that's gotta hurt the lefties. Obama the same as George Bush, the object of irrational, knee-jerk leftist hatred!

None the less, what Ahmadinejad is saying is, bend over, keep quiet, not your place dhimmi, shut it, screw you. Hussein O has done his utmost to say nothing, do nothing, weasel this way and that until just about everyone was demanding that he grow a pair and at least say something! But all his weaseling and groveling has been for naught, and this is because we continue to misunderstand the Islamists.

Like Robert Spencer says, it's not what we say or do that causes them to hate us, it's their religion, it tells them to dominate the world, it tells them we are inferior to them, that we can never be equal to them and we must be reduced to a state of humiliation and servitude. Think about it, if you were some master race of aliens that inhabited a nearby galaxy possessing far superior technology to us humans, would you tolerate some human wanker prattling on about your business.

It doesn't matter that we are superior or think we are all the same, reality does not enter the equation here because you're not dealing with the rational. Get it through your thick skull Hussein O, grow a pair and stick it to the bastards at every turn, that's what they did to the soldiers you are supposedly the commander in chief of. They have your soldiers blood on their hands, when they had the chance they didn't try to stay out of your way and weasel around, so you must return the favor with compound interest.

Hard to see what's objectionable about it. There is no mention of sex in it as far as I can see. What is wrong with a girl wanting to be attractive? I suspect that it is only dried-out old uglies who are protesting.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

One of the most deceitful tactics of the fascists running D.C. these days is the time-honored trick of the illusionist - and the bar-room sucker-punch.

Remember the ending scenes of National Lampoon's "Animal House", where "Otter" Stratton gets back at Marmalard during the parade?Yeah, the part where he holds up his LEFT thumb and says, "Lookit my thumb" - then socks the puke with a RIGHT cross when he looks - "Gee, you're dumb."

That's what we have with the thumbs in the media and the fists in Congress and the White House.It comes down to this:Everyone's got their panties in a bunch about abc finally coming out of the closet and doing a prime-time infomercial for the Sacred Sock Puppet's socialized medicine scheme (which looks like it might just die the well-deserved death it truly warrants).But while that's got all the talking heads chattering about it day and night, Congress is attempting to tear a chunk out of our republic with the "Card Check" forced unionizing bill in the Senate, and then rip chunk out of our wallets with the "Cap And Tax" Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives.

The latter will cost average American families literally THOUSANDS of dollars per household in increased prices, while the former will shove unions down the throats of millions of Americans by removing the right to a secret ballot on unionization votes, allowing union thugs to intimidate people who vote against unionizing.{trivia note: it was the unions who originally demanded secret ballots to avoid COMPANY thugs from knowing who voted FOR unionizing!}

...and I'm not EVEN going to get into how der Fehler illegally fired an Inspector General for having the nerve to investigate an obama-buddy connected with his AmeriCorps scam;or the acorn voter-registration cheats likely being tagged to help gerrymander the US Census;Supreme Court nominees touted for their empathy rather than their objectivity;or the government taking over car companies and financial institutions (and the Chief Executive firing a private company CEO along with other patently unConstitutional acts);or that little matter of the Fed printing increasingly worthless money to cover the spectacularly irresponsible spending of the lunatics running the D.C. asylum......

So what if we're enslaving our kids to crippling taxes and soul-killing inflation?Damn the inflation! Full Spend Ahead! Bring on the Taxes!!!Here's the number to the Capitol Hill switchboard: 202-224-3121And here's a handy little link to how to find your personal CongressCritter:http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/index.htm

The congenital door-knobs in D.C. are going to try to sneak those two abominations through votes on Friday, under cover of the smoke screen provided by all the fireworks over socialist health care.Might I suggest that you CALL those treasonous bastards and tell them how you feel?...unless you actually WANT your children and grandkids to look at you and ask, "How could you let them do this to us?"

National Post - A bomb killed at least 72 people on Wednesday at a busy market in eastern Baghdad's Sadr City slum, police said, six days before U.S. combat troops are due to withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities. About 127 people were wounded by the blast in the poor, mostly Shi'ite Muslim area. A witness said the explosion tore through a part of the Mraidi Market where birds are sold, setting stalls ablaze.

Bloodshed has dropped sharply across Iraq in the past year, but militants including Sunni Islamist al Qaeda continue to launch car and suicide bombings aimed at undermining the government and reigniting sectarian conflict. Wednesday's market bombing came four days after the U.S. military formally handed control to local forces in Sadr City, where U.S. and Iraqi forces fought fierce battles against Shi'ite militiamen in the spring of 2008.

I sure hope it doesn't get worse over there, because I think most of us know that Hussein O hasn't got the balls to stand firm and tell the likes of al-qaeda to go to hell. Heck, fresh from his tour of half-truths, out-right lies and ass-polishing in the middle east, he doesn't even have the balls to utter the odd word in support of hope and change in Iran. So I doubt very much that he has the ability to stand up to evil in neighboring Iraq.

Perhaps the muslim terrorists know this and that is why they are stepping things up, they know they'll get carved up by the armed forces of the great Satan, so that's not his weak point. The weak point is the politicians that are in charge of them, none of them have to pick up a gun and dodge RPGs, but they still have no spine. Their leader is Hussein O and so far he's demonstrated that he is more than willing to literally bend over for Islam.

So if they can kill a few thousand in the name of peace, tolerance and love, otherwise known as Islam, while the Americans pull out, they can quite easily claim victory. Who said mass-murder and evil doesn't pay, definitely not Hussein O.

This is typical Leftist destructiveness. Decoding note: The "Pacific guest worker program" mentioned below consists of bringing in totally unskilled Polynesians, a group known for a high crime-rate, obesity and not much else. "Shutting down the Pacific solution" means giving residence permits to illegal immigrants, mostly Middle Eastern Muslims with all their horrible attitudes.

Skilled immigration will fall due to the global economic crisis, the Federal Government says. ''I expect the numbers of our program to drop next year ... as a reaction to the economic circumstances,'' Immigration Minister Chris Evans told reporters. Senator Evans said the size of the cut would be a matter for cabinet.

The government was very aware that labour demand would differ across regions and economic sectors. ''It's not a one size fits all.''

In Britain the government is hardening immigration laws as unemployment rises amid the financial meltdown. Non-European Union workers migrating to Britain will, from April, have to hold a masters degree and will have to show they earned a salary of at least $44,000 before moving to the UK.

Despite the pressures on immigration, Senator Evans said the Pacific guest worker program would not be reviewed ''at this stage''. However, he did say the government was reconsidering what occupations should be listed on the commonwealth's critical skills list.

The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union has already called for construction jobs to be cut from the list. ''The critical skills list is under review and that's one of the things we will look at as the circumstances change,'' Senator Evans said. ''We will probably have a formal look at that in the next couple of weeks.''

South Australia's Master Builders Association has warned against such a cut, saying the soon to come infrastructure spending by government meant plenty of workers would be needed in the sector.

Senator Evans' comments came after meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres. The meeting culminated in the government offering an extra $4.4 million in funding to the body. Mr Guterres admitted the snowballing economic crisis would not help refugees but praised Australia for taking a bigger role in the issue since Labor's election win, especially for shutting down the Pacific solution. ''We believe things are moving in the right direction,'' Mr Guterres said.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

I don't suppose it's big news but many homsexuals don't think very highly of one-another either:

"Police have charged the tour manager of the Black Eyed Peas with assault after he allegedly gave celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a black eye outside a Toronto nightclub.

Hilton said he got into an argument with band members Fergie and will.i.am at the Cobra nightclub early Monday morning and was punched outside by Polo Molina, the band's tour manager. They were at the club following a Sunday night video awards show.

Hilton, who is openly gay, said in interview with The Associated Press that he called will.i.am a "faggot," a gay slur, inside the club after the musician told the blogger not to write about his band on his Web site.

The homosexual "community" now seems intent on excommunicating their one-time hero over his use of such a naughty word. Details of the furore here.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Yahoo! News - Family First senator Steve Fielding has made up his mind on climate change - the world is not warming now, and humans aren't changing the climate. The government and the country's top scientists have tried to convince Senator Fielding, who holds a crucial vote in the upper house, that global warming is real. But he's released a document setting out his position. "Global temperature isn't rising," it says. On emissions trading, Senator Fielding said he wouldn't risk job losses on "unconvincing green science".

......"Over the last 15 years, global temperatures haven't been going up and, therefore, there hasn't been in the last 15 years a period of global warming," Senator Fielding told AAP. "I think that global warming is real, and climate change is real, but on average global temperatures have stayed steady while carbon emissions have increased over the last 15 years. "Man-made carbon emissions don't appear to be causing it." Because of the numbers in the upper house, Senator Fielding's verdict means the government will have to rely on the opposition to get its emissions trading scheme (ETS) legislation passed.

Thank heavens for the few like him, if it weren't for politicians like him, who actually give a damn about us, we'd all be paying some sort of tax to the rest of the bastards for daring to breath and live comfortable lives. Good on ya Steve Fielding, good on ya.

Pictured above are a couple of "Blitz" trucks in mint condition. There were a number of variations of them. You see above, for instance, that they came in both 6-wheel and 4-wheel versions. They were made in Canada by both Ford and Chevrolet during WWII as part of the huge Canadian contribution to the war effort. Male Canadians and Britons in those days were men, not the whining mice that most seem to have become under Leftist influence in the postwar era.

My interest in the "Blitz" stems from the fact that my father used to use one in his work as a timber feller ("lumberjack" in North American parlance). Once you have felled a huge forest tree, you have got to get it out of the bush somehow -- either to a rail siding or a road where you can load it onto a truck.

Unlike his father, my father did not use a bullock-team to "snig" (drag) the log along a bush track to its destination. He used a Blitz. A Blitz was originally designed to negotiate the often difficult terrain leading up to battlefields and it therefore had both 4WD and a double-reduction gearbox. It was slow but tough and versatile and could go almost anywhere -- which made it ideal for forest work after the war. And it was immensely popular after the war. They were all over the place in country areas. They were often used as tow-trucks. The picture below is an indication of how many there were before they all eventually wore out.

What I would like to know is how they originated. They were apparently designed in Britain but look like no other British vehicle. My suspicion is that the design was a copy of an Opel Blitz of the period. Opel is/was the German tentacle of GM. So I suspect that the British just copied a successful German design. I have however not been able to find a picture of the Opel Blitz of that period.

The name "Blitz" certainly suggests a German origin. "Blitz" is the German word for lightning. On the other hand, maybe the name is simply ironical: Whatever else the Blitz was, it was certainly not fast.

There must be a million collectors of military vehicles worldwide and a Blitz in good condition would certainly be most prized in such circles so I hope at least one collector reads this and is able to give me the history behind the "Blitz".

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Daily Mail - One of Radio 2's most popular religious presenters has launched a stinging attack on the BBC suggesting the broadcaster is biased against Christianity. Don Maclean, 66, who hosted Good Morning Sunday for 16 years, said the broadcaster was 'keen' on programmes that attack the Christian church. He said programming chiefs were keen to take a 'negative angle at every opportunity' in a way they do not with other faiths like Islam. Mr Maclean said programmes about Anglicanism on the BBC always discuss gay clergy and for Catholicism they always mention paedophiles.

When you stop and think about it, you could say that of just about every media outlet in the western world. Just getting a fair hearing if you're a Christian or white is a luxury. Another thing I was thinking of, the BBC is partly funded by the British taxpayer and of those taxpayers, I'm sure that the majority would be white and Christian. Typical leftism isn't it folks, hate, loath and despise the hand that feeds them over the one that would subjugate them at the first chance. See the following, nothing of this would penetrate the thick skulls of the scum at the BBC.

Reuters - Bangladesh security forces seized explosives and arrested some 20 Islamist militants in the last two days in raids across the South Asian country of more than 140 million people, police said on Monday. ......Explosives, grenade shells [To celebrate Christmas early this year you know], revolvers, IT equipment [That would be for the gay porn, I'm guessing] and detonators [For the aforementioned 'fireworks'] were seized in the raids, an officer of the Rapid Action Battalion (elite force) told Reuters. "It's an achievement that we could track and arrest ... Rajib," he said.

AP - A court run by an extremist Islamic group sentenced four Somali men on Monday to each have a hand and a leg cut off for allegedly stealing mobile phones and guns. The ruling prompted an outcry from human rights activists. ......"We have convicted them of theft, so they deserve to have their arms and legs amputated," said Sheik Abdul Haq, the al-Shabab judge in the capital, Mogadishu. Al-Shabab has carried out amputations and other punishments elsewhere in Somalia, but they are rare in the capital. Hat tip Jihad Watch.

No sir, it's far, far worse over amongst the Christians you know. Just today I was driving past a church and I saw the priest and some of his minions whipping people into the church, get ta prayin' boy, or else. Thanks godless for those bwave, bwave media outlets, bwaving militant Anglicans and terrorist Catholics blowing up schools and cutting peoples heads off. Compared to the Christians, them Islamists are like..... well the religion of peace and jihad is like..... an inner struggle against obesity or something.

If she had blown all her money on "recreational" drugs, she would have got a tick of approval!

Astrid Bieler is 72 and has four screws in her spine, but in less than three weeks Housing NSW will evict her from the flat where she has lived for the past 10 years. When she was among the first to move into the Tweed Heads development for over 55s, Ms Bieler hoped to remain in her new home for the rest of her days. The flat was purpose built for aging singles like her, she had friends in the area where she had lived for 12 years and she could manage the $130-weekly rent.

In July the landlord, Alby Ross, who had built and run her complex, advised his tenants that he was putting the Banora Point property on the market... It was quickly bought by Housing NSW, which then screened the tenants to work out who could stay and who must go. Ms Bieler desperately wanted to stay but was told that even though she was on a full pension she was too young [at 72??], not sick enough and, with life savings of $20,000 and 5000 Telstra shares [worth $16,000 at current market value], too wealthy.

The department gave her six months to find somewhere else, and when she failed to move, gave her a final month. It has now advised her she will have to leave to make way for someone more deserving unless her last-minute appeal to a Housing Appeals Committee is successful. A spokeswoman for the Housing Minister, David Borger, confirmed Ms Bielder would have to move out but denied she was eligible for public housing, a claim Ms Bielder says is simply wrong. "I was approved for public housing and put on the waiting list in Tweed Heads in August," she said.

Mr Borger's spokeswoman said the department regretted evicting aging tenants but Ms Bielder's savings meant she had to make way for others less fortunate. "Unfortunately, the reality is that there are many people who are doing it tough who need help from Housing NSW - people with no assets at all, no family and who also suffer serious health problems." The department has been trying to help her find accommodation, suggesting options such as caravan parks and places for sale. [What could she buy with $20,000??]

"I just want to stay where I live, where I have my friends," she said. "I can't understand why a government department is doing this to someone my age."

Comment by David Yeagley below. I add some further notes at the foot of his post

In the great American liberal media, the word “conservative” represents the bad guys, the meanies. Any liberal media report on Iran’s current crisis will use the world “conservative” in reference to the mullahs, Ahmadinejad, and the present regime. By contrast, anyone who respects human rights (sometimes called “freedom”) is to be called “liberal.”

The truth is exactly the opposite. This is not something that should be ignored, unnoticed, or not condemned.

Liberals think the conservatives are those clinging to tradition, or to “their guns or religion,” as Barry Soetoro, acting US president, declared. This is a highly relative, subjective call. When applied to the country of Iran, liberal media shows the classic example of partiality, selective history, and gigantic ignorance.

The tradition of Iran is Persia. The foundational identity of Persia is the reign of the Achamenid emperors, from Cyrus the Great (560-530 BC) through Darius III (336-330 BC). This is the era known for general humanitarian sentiments, internationalism, and advanced civilization. This is Iran. Islam is an Arab religion, brought to Iran by the invading slaughters from Arabia in the 8th century AD. There is nothing Persian about this religion, language, or culture. Iran’s Persian culture has survived today because of patriots like Ferdowsi, Persian patriots, who resisted the Arab Islamicist’s attempt to obliterate Persian glory.

The Iranians who want to honor and preserve their Persian identity are the true conservatives of Iran. The mullahs are coercivists, just like American liberals, like Barry Soetoro in the White House, who want to coerce their ideas on the American people. Coercion is the liberal way.

It is a grave error to equate American conservatism with the Islamic regime in Iran. This is simply grossly mistaken, and should not be ignored. The AP wire by “ALI AKBAR DAREINI and BRIAN MURPHY” demonstrates the typical error:

a state-run television channel reported that a suicide bombing at the shrine of the Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least two people and wounded eight. The report could be not independently evaluated due to government restrictions on journalists. If proven true, the reports could enrage conservatives and bring strains among backers of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Note that the “conservatives” are those who support the Islamic regime. Therefore, the “liberals” must be anyone who opposes them.

I say it is time to correct this error. Liberals in America will of course try to take credit for anything good that comes out of the opposition movement in Iran. It’s time the lying deceivers were exposed.

This same problem arose in the dying days of the old Soviet union. Hardliners there too were often called "conservatives" in the Western media. Journalists saw nothing strange in calling Communists "conservatives"! That is the sort of blindness that could only come out of Left-dominated journalism schools.

The mistake arises from the very simple-minded nature of Leftism. Leftists define the political spectrum purely in terms of attitude to the status quo. They are against it so conservatives must be for it. But conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were great changers of the status quo so does that make them Leftists? Clearly not. So defining politics solely in terms of attitude to the status quo is brain-dead. While it is true that rejection of the status quo defines Leftists pretty well, what defines conservatives is something quite different: A desire for individual liberty. But Leftists know that to change the status quo significantly you need coercive power: the power of government in particular. And conservatives don't want to be coerced. They want individuals to be able to make their own decisions as freely as possible. So that is why the Left and the Right clash.

The Soviets, the Ayatollahs and American "liberals" are the ones who are three peas in a pod: They all depend on the coercive power of the State in order to get their way. Conservatives don't want to get their way. They just want to be left alone to do their own thing. Sadly, however, we have to fight the left in order to be left alone. I say much more about the nature of conservatism here -- with particular reference to the history and psychology of conservatism

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Deutsche Welle - Authorities in Somalia have warned that insurgents are about to take control of the country. The government has declared a state of emergency and is appealing for urgent military help from neighboring countries. The dramatic appeal for urgent military help was made in the capital Mogadishu by parliamentary speaker Sheik Aden Mohammed Noor Madobe. He said that increasing attacks have weakened the government. "Our forces can no longer withstand al-Qaida-backed insurgents. We need urgent military help from Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Yemen in the next 24 hours," Madobe said. So far, the four countries have not responded to Madobe's appeal. Madobe made it clear that al-Qaida fighters were fighting alongside the country's al-Shabab Islamist insurgents.

The past two weeks have seen the insurgents use suicide bombers to kill Somali cabinet ministers and top government officials. ......The insurgents have been recruiting fighters from Africa, from America, Bwakira said. "Therefore we are sending a signal to the international community that these threats to peace and stability is a challenge and a threat to international peace and stability," he said. ......The unpredictable and unstable situation in Somalia has prompted neighboring Kenya to tighten security along its porous border with the Horn of Africa nation. ......As Kenya stepped up its security, al-Shabab insurgents threatened to attack Kenya accusing it of amassing troops at its border with Somalia.

Once they take Somalia, they'll start looking elsewhere, they don't just want the odd place here and there where they can beat their women and keep defecating in holes. We have to get it through our skulls, they want the world and they will stop at nothing. They won't stop or leave us alone if we leave them alone, they are not frightened of war or death, because they fight for their god and they believe that he will reward them.

As Mark Steyn said, You always have a dog in the fight, whether you know it or not. And in the case of Islam, the dogs of war are far more vicious and dangerous than we think. Even those who are not burdened with leftists fighting for the other side, lawyers, human-rights, civil liberties and all that shit are reeling against them.

Deutsche Welle - The leader of Russia's Ingushetia region is in intensive care following an assasination attempt on Monday morning. Russian officials say Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, President of the Republic of Ingushetia, was critically wounded in a blast on his cortege, which was said to be travelling outside the Ingush regional center, Nazran. ......An unnamed police official said the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber who drove into the presidential convoy. The attempt on Yevkurov's life is the latest in a string of high-profile attacks that have killed a former deputy prime minister and a senior judge within the past weeks. Ingushetia is a predominantly Muslim region, which has been fighting an Islamic insurgency for the past years.

Forget having a dog in the fight, we don't even have an ass in the fight. It ain't a swell idea to turn up to a gunfight with a knife, but if that's all you got, then cold steel it is. But that's not us westerners, we're stumbling to the fight, half-drunk and bare-arsed. We're so far out of it that when they break our laws, we can't even muster the balls or the brains to make their lives even a little less accommodating.

"[West Australian] teen tennis star Brydan Klein has been fined the maximum possible amount by the ATP for racially abusing a South African opponent during a tournament in the UK.

Klein was suspended by the Australian Institute of Sport after he was accused of calling Raven Klaasen a "f***ing kaffir" during the clash at a tournament in Eastbourne.

And despite issuing a public apology, the ATP handed down a $14,000 fine to Klein, saying further penalties could arise out of a full investigation. In a statement, Klein said he deeply regretted his actions.

This is an interesting exercise in onomastics (the study of names) for me. From the Dutch surname and brown skin, Klaasen is presumably what was once called a "Cape Coloured" (person of mixed race) and the epithet would have been very wounding to him -- as Cape Coloureds always hated being lumped in with the "Bantu" (an official term for wholly native Africans).

But the most interesting thing is where Klein got the term from. It is normally used in Africa only. Western Australia does have a large number of white refugees from South Africa so that may be it. A more remote possibility centres on the fact that "Klein" is often a Jewish surname and South Africa's once-large Jewish population has been moving out of what they rightly perceive as a dangerous place for a long time now. So maybe Klein's parents were South African Jews and he learnt the term from them. There seems to be nothing on the net to say where they come from. On the other hand, Klein does not look at all Jewish. But a "Jewish" look is far from universal among Jews so that tells us nothing.

Onomastics aside, the interesting thing is that Klein clearly thought of Klaasen as a "Kaffir" and it came out in a heated moment. You can suppress speech but you cannot suppress thought. I would think that it is surely best to have thoughts out in the open. Speech is often a poor predictor of behaviour but if thoughts were allowed to be freely expressed it might not be.

The term "Kaffir" is not always derogatory. British parliamentary enquiries into the welfare of the South African native blacks in the 19th century used that term for them (although spelled "Caffre") even though the whole purpose of the enquiry was broadly sympathetic to them. In Apartheid-era South Africa it was often used simply as a racial classifier, though it did also tend to imply a judgment of racial inferiority. It is very risky for a white to use the term at all in South Africa today, of course, though some of the older generation still do. I said a bit more about "Kaffir" on April 23.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

Behind our "Western" heart

As the name of this blog implies, we have always welcomed contributors and readers from anywhere in the Western world. But there is also something else behind the name. The blog originated in Australia and most contributions come from Australia. And that is very fitting. Australians have an unusually good awareness of events outside their own country. Australian newspapers feature news from Britain and the USA not as an afterthought but as a major part of their coverage. So Australians do tend to have a truly Western heart -- and you will see that in the posts appearing here. Events in Australia, Britain and the USA all feature frequently here, plus occasional coverage of other places, particularly Israel.

A primer in American politics for non-Americans:

SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest court in the land

The "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party" and refers to the Republican party. The GOP is at present center/Right, while the Democrats have been undergoing a steady drift Leftwards and now have policies similar to mainstream European Leftist parties.

The ideological identity of both parties has however been very fluid -- almost reversing itself over time. In the mid 19th century, the GOP was the party of big government and concern for minorities while the Democrats advertised themselves as "The party of the white man" -- an orientation that lasted into the mid 20th century in the South. The Democrats are still obsessed with race but have now flipped into support for discrimination AGAINST whites.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Some brief observations about Leftism

As a good academic, I first define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His excellent short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed. If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone. If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him. If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down. If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!) If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left.

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among people who should know better, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

“Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics.” -- C.J. Keyser

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state – capitalism frees them.

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in a MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

You can email me (John Ray) here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR"

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)